10/20 Webinar, Dr. Jessica Toste on "Word Connections"

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As students move into the intermediate grades, they face a greater amount of text with more complex words, yet many lack a systematic approach for decoding these words. Students with reading disabilities, even those who have attained foundational reading skills, often experience substantial difficulty with multisyllabic words. In this recent webinar, Dr. Jessica Toste demonstrated the instructional practices that comprise Word Connections, a free, evidence-based targeted reading intervention program focused on advanced word reading fluency. She explained the methodology of this successful program and provided links to free lessons, videos, and other resources.

An award-winning educator, Dr. Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education and Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities. She is principal investigator on research grants from the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Reading League Journal (TRLJ), an associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, and President of Council for Exceptional Children's (CEC) Division for Research.

She says that as a child, she was a "word nerd," and still is! Toste's teaching approach is that reading is fun!